San Diego, a Gay Pride Parade, firemen, and a lawsuit:
Four firefighters are pressing sexual harassment claims against the city's fire department after they were taunted while driving a fire engine in a gay pride parade last month, an attorney said Monday....
And what happened, exactly?
The men claim their battalion chief ordered them to ride in the July 21 parade through San Diego's Hillcrest neighborhood, according to their attorney, Stephen Stirling. The firefighters followed the order out of concern they would otherwise be suspended or punished.
During the parade, the firefighters said, bystanders taunted them with sexually explicit comments and colleagues called to tease them for participating in the event.
They were teased by their colleagues? That's horrible! I know several firefighters, and if there is one thing they fear, it's being teased by their colleagues. It makes them so very sad.
Dreadful. But what about the sexual remarks with which they were "taunted"? (It is well known that firefighters are almost as easily hurt by taunting as by teasing.) The ABC report does not specify, but if we go to the site of the Thomas More Legal Center, who is representing the aggrieved parties, we can find out more. But first, prepare to be shocked! As the fine folks at the Tommy More Center caution, and I quote:
*WARNING EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT*
So don't say you weren't informed. I cannot be responsible for any fainting fits or attacks of the vapors. From the Tommy More press release:
Four respected San Diego firefighters were ordered, against their wishes, to participate in uniform on their city fire truck in the city’s annual “Gay Pride” parade. During the course of the ensuing three hour long ordeal, the firefighters were subjected to vile sexual taunts from homosexuals lining the parade route. This included the following statements: “show me your hose,” “you can put out my fire,” “you’re making me hot,” “give me mouth-to-mouth,” “you look hungry, why don’t you have a twinkie (from a man wearing a “Girth and Mirth” t-shirt),” and “blow my hose.” These firemen are devoted husbands and fathers. When they refused to respond to the crowd, some in the crowd turned hostile and started shouting, “F—k you firemen” and others began “flipping them off.”....
You can see why the stern warning was necessary. "Blow my hose," indeed. But it gets even worse:
The firefighters were also targets of gross sexual gestures to include the following: exposure of genitals, blowing kisses, grabbing of the crotch, rubbing of nipples, tongue gestures, men hugging and kissing one another passionately, many of them wearing make-up and dressed like women. Although the firefighters were not physically assaulted, the gestures were clearly directed towards them.
Some of them were dressed like women -- and they were kissing. Is it not enough that these firefighters were assaulted with hose-related innuendo, but were also subjected to savage kissing-related activities?
It actually sounds like these guys could have just, you know, shown up with a sense of humor. Though I strongly suspect that they did not merely "refuse to respond": they were hostile to the whole idea of appearing in the parade based upon their "beliefs" about homosexuals, and I bet it showed. So they got flipped off. No surprise.
I'm actually fairly sympathetic to the argument that they should not have been forced to participate -- accepting that that is indeed what happened -- if for no other reason than that it was unfair to the parade-goers to be treated to the spectacle of these good husbands and fathers regarding them at their own parade as "immoral." Because that was the reason they didn't want to go. As ABC quotes one of the firefighters:
"I was forced into a situation that would compromise what I hold true and what I believe in," engineer Jason Hewitt said in a statement.
What he holds true and believes in would appear to be that homosexuality is wrong. No wonder they got the response they did.
What this nonsense is all about is another attempt to legitimize the idea that bigotry against homosexuals is an acceptable moral position. That's certainly one of the major goals of the Tommy More people, who bill themselves as "The Sword and Shield for People of Faith." They have quite the history of taking up cases like this -- not to mention a history of pulling stunts like sticking their nose into the Terry Schiavo mess, telling Jeb! Bush that he could "could legally intervene to order a criminal investigation into whether Terri Schiavo may have been abused at some point by her husband, Michael Schiavo, who has always denied such charges," according to Wikipedia. (They're also the bunch that got beat like a gong in the Dover School District "Intelligent Design" case.)
This San Diego case is in my exalted opinion a load of crap. I don't know the San Diego firefighters' contract, but if it includes anything about a firefighters' duties including occasionally having to do shit like show up at parades, then that's it. For reasons that should be obvious, it would be a bad thing to have individual firefighters be able to opt out of certain events involving specific groups in the community. This is not only because it would be wrong to have a firefighter tell his captain, "you know, I just don't want to go to the Martin Luther King parade -- the St. Patrick's Day parade was bad enough, all those potato-eating vermin staring up at me, taunting me... it haunts my dreams!" The real problem is that firefighters are supposed to serve the public impartially. It would be a real problem if the San Diego gay community lost faith in the San Diego Fire Department's willingness to put out any fires that might break out in their homes or businesses. "They dress like girls, some of them! And they kiss each other! I can't save them if their house is burning down! I might have to touch them in the process! ICKY!" And, frankly, I don't think any gay person in San Diego would be unreasonable in wondering about this issue right now. If it's OK that firefighters won't have to come to their parades because they're grossed out, what would provide confidence that they would unhesitatingly respond to their fires?
Beyond that, there are several points about the case that make it extremely fishy. First, I assume that the SDFD has a firefighters' union. In my experience, when a firefighter (or any other public employee) has a bone to pick with management, the first stop is the union rep, not a conservative religious legal organization. That I don't see anything from the union here makes me suspect that the SDFD contract does indeed state that management can ask members to appear in public events like parades. I'm just guessing here, and I'm far too lazy to look it up, and I could be wrong. But if that's in the contract, then, well, end of story.
Next, "sexual harassment"? Sexual harassment law does not state that you can sue just because someone offers to do something nasty with your "hose." There is clearly no sexual quid pro quo involved in the parade attendance between management and the firefighters; the behavior of the crowd at the parade cannot be reasonably seen to have an effect on the firefighters' ability to do their jobs ("I can't put out this fire because I saw a dude dressed like a chick"); and anyway, the city of San Diego is obviously not responsible for the behavior of people who attend public parades. I am of course not a lawyer, but this suit looks shaky as shit.
Finally, the Tommy More gang are clearly dragging in everything they can possibly think of to make it seem like they have a case, which does not inspire confidence in the justice of their complaint. Get a load of this:
Local papers reporting on the parade made no mention of the lewd and offensive behavior that characterized the parade.
Brian Rooney, an attorney and Director of Communications at the Law Center who lived in San Diego for over three years while serving as a Marine officer commented, “This event panders to the most base elements of what is advertised as ‘America’s Finest City’. Even the homosexual community should be outraged and ashamed of the sexual harassment these firemen were forced to endure.”
Hee hee. Look, if no local newspapers had any such reports, that is not a point in their favor. Logically, it tends to support the notion that the firefighters' claims are exaggerated. But of course the Tommy More press release is stretching to appeal to the wingnutty belief that the Media Hates Them, not to logic. It's wingnut-stroking, pure and simple. As is the entirely irrelevant information that Rooney is a former Marine. Sheesh. But the most hilarious (in a disgusting way) is the photo that accompanies the announcement of the release on the Tommy More home page. I swear I am not making this up. Here is the picture: 
I'd say it's unbelievable, but it is no such thing. That's Your Modern Right Wing Culture Warriors for you, Fighting Insanely to Make America Safe for Insane Bigotry Through the Constant Nursing of Preposterous Grievances.
A noble bunch, indeed.
